Dublin

We left for Dublin after school on Monday and arrived at about nine o'clock at night. We only had time to eat and walk down the street our hotel was on, before going to bed that night. The next day's itinerary was full of activities. After breakfast at Starbucks we all gathered outside the hotel and went on a hop on/hop off sightseeing bus. Most of the students, including me, went to a prison called “Kilmanhaim gaol”. There we were guided through different parts of the prison and told some fun facts and some not so fun facts about it. We were showed the cells of legendary people and the places the criminals were executed. The tour was really interesting. We were supposed to go to another historic site, but someone got us lost while trying to find the bus stop. Therefore we just took the bus back to the city, and listened to the guide on the bus.

Some of the girls and I went to lunch and meet up with the rest of the class in front of Trinity College. Here we met another guide who gave us a walking tour of Dublin in the historical area around our hotel. He first talked about Trinity College before taking us to City Hall, Dublin Castle and the Christchurch Cathedral. After the second guided tour of the day we had free time to do whatever we wanted. Some went shopping, while Nina and I watched “Bring it on, again” in her room until people came back and it was time for the evening activity. We had the choice between going on a pub crawl with Andreas or dinner with Ingse, and I went to dinner. We had a great time and a fun evening.

The third day, Wednesday, we all got up early to go to Belfast. We went by bus and it took about three hours with a stop. In Belfast we were divided into smaller groups and given a guide. First we went to a catholic cemetery were we saw the graves of Bobby Sands, Giuseppe Conlon and many IRA volunteers. We then had a three course lunch before we continued the tour of Belfast. After this our awesome bus driver took us to the Northern-Ireland parliament building, were we had another guided tour. The guide here was actually really good and explained the political system in Ireland to us in an interesting way. She also showed us two of the rooms in the parliament building. On our way back to Dublin we drove through Belfast city. There was no evening activity which was good because we were all tired from a day full of educational content.

The last whole day abroad was Thursday. We started the day with walking to the Dublin Viking Adventure, a Viking exhibition. We also went through an exhibition of the time of the plague and another one showing how modern day technology is used to find historical traces. We ended up inside the Christchurch cathedral were we looked around before heading to the statue of Oscar Wilde. Many of us went to lunch with the teachers before going shopping and having free time until dinner at 10. Some went with Andreas to see Greyhound racing before dinner, but I did not. We had dinner at this cute Italian place before going back to the hotel and going to bed.

The last day in Dublin I slept in and only got to go to Starbucks before we went home. I had a great time!

Thea H.